Skip to content
The Pyramid At The End Of The World picks up where Extremis left off, with the baddie monks with no nose… so how do they smell? Oh… I made that joke last week. Well, if Doctor Who can recycle old ideas…
Bill is taken away with the army to find the Doctor as the President, the man in charge when the Earth is in crisis.
The Doctor approached the pyramid, which then opened a bit, leading to a no-nose baddie monk coming out and waffling about they’re going to take over the world and how they’ll speak again at the end of the Earth, then switches everyone’s clocks to 11.57pm. Since it’s three minutes to midnight, and the closer they get to midnight, the closer they are to the end of the Earth, then the time can’t be far away.
Attempts to destroy the structure would never work, since they can counter anything, and they did so by shooting a laser beam of the pyramid into the plane in order to teleport/replace the pilots with the monks, allowing them to land on the ground, later releasing the pilots who were teleported into the pyramid. Hmm… surely it would’ve made more sense for them to blow stuff up? Oh, but they wanted to help *save* the world, even though that always seemed to result in people dying and, quite frankly, if baddies are going to bump someone off, they should start with all those idiots who feel the need to talk to their Alexa, Google Home and similar devices, rather than simply press a button or three on a phone.
Inside the pyramid, are smell-less enemies have many sets of fibre optic cables which relate to each individual’s life strand, and they waffle some more – this time about how they can stop the world ending and will offer protection forever. So, what sort of monthly payment plan are these heavies asking for? They have to be asked… but your consent leads to your death because they feel our fear… blah, blah, blah.
Elsewhere, the Agrofuel lab was performing experiments, leading to all their plants dying, thanks to a cock-up on the gardening front. Apparently, this was the cause of all the kerfuffle. There was a completely improbable way in which they tracked the location down, and instead of a Big Red Reset Button, the solution involved a huge explosion, there, and while there was a chance that Bill could die… sadly, she lives to fight another episode. Bugger!
Rewind back a bit, and with the Doctor unable to see, he couldn’t enter a combination lock code to free him and ensure he doesn’t die in said explosion. Meanwhile, Nardole was no help, as the lazy get was taking 40 winks in the TARDIS.
Sadly, the lab problem was about as scary as being unable to get out of a task room from The Crystal Maze.
So, a bit of potential soon gave way to endless junk as all the tertiary characters spent the best part of 45 minutes pondering on whether to surrender to the monks.
There was one amusing line when the blind Doctor said: “Bill, take that look off your face!” Well, duh, she was born that way! Nothing’s gonna change? She’ll have that gawpy, hang-dog look until the day she dies!!
And never mind anything alien/outlandish in this episode, I was more amazed that Bill had heard of the term “executive decision”!
On the plus side, at least it had some sort of coherence, compared to last week’s randomising mess.
Next week: The monks rule the Earth. Missy is back and the Doctor’s been doing weird broadcasts for six months, since he’s joined them. Oh, and then he gets shot. Hope he changes places with Bill at the last second.
The Pyramid At The End Of The World is available on the BBC iPlayer until one week after the series ends.
You can also buy Series 10 Part 1 on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on May 29th. Both versions contain six episodes, plus six exclusive Series 10 art-cards.
In addition, you can pre-order Series 10 Part 2 on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on July 17th. Both versions contain the last six episodes, plus six exclusive Series 10 art-cards.
Individual episodes can be bought in HD and SD here.
Score: 2/10
Director: Daniel Nettheim
Producer: Peter Bennett
Executive Producers: Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin
Writer: Steven Moffat and Peter Harness
Music: Murray Gold
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Bill: Pearl Mackie
Nardole: Matt Lucas
Erica: Rachel Denning
Douglas: Tony Gardner
Secretary General: Togo Igawa
The Commander: Nigel Hastings
Colonel Don Brabbit: Eben Young
Ilya: Andrew Byron
Xiaolian: Daphne Cheung
Penny: Ronke Adekoluejo
Monk: Jamie Hill
Voice of the Monks: Tim Bentinck
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.